PORT AUTHORITY AND DURST ORGANIZATION WILL TEST SPIRE AND BEACON ON TOP OF ONE WORLD TRADE CENTER TONIGHT
B-roll and photo opportunity tonight, November 8

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and The Durst Organization will conduct a test of the spire and beacon atop One World Trade Center this evening. Together, the spire and beacon stand 408-feet tall.

The beacon, which is the top section of spire, contains 288 50-watt LED modules that produce 288,000 lumens of light that will enable the spire to be visible up to 50 miles on a clear night. The spire will serve a state-of-the-art broadcast facility, to be operated by The Durst Organization. It will provide unparalleled transmission services for the region’s broadcast outlets. Ironworkers completed installation of the spire on May 10, 2013 bringing One World Trade Center to its iconic height of 1,776 feet.

Who: The Port Authority of NY and NJ and The Durst Organization

What: Test lighting of the spire and beacon

When: Friday, November 8 beginning at 5:30 p.m.

Where: Spire and beacon will be visible throughout the city.
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Stood for 20 minutes in Elanore Roosevelt park waiting for the spire to light - took a 2 minute walk to Bowery and caught a glimpse of the lit spire just before it turned off. Now both the beacon and spire are dark - is that it? This blows.

WNBC-NY has live streaming view of 1WTC right now...the spire just had purple-ish lights chase up the spire from the comm ring to the top of the beacon then they went out....doubt the test is over since the beacon has gone on and off a couple times in the last ten mins

The 408-foot beacon and spire will be lit up as a test at 5:30 p.m. Friday, officials said.
With its 288 50-watt modules shining brightly, the spire, which is also a broadcast tower, will be visible from 50 miles away on a clear night.

The goal is to eventually have the spire lit every night, adding some extra shine to the New York skyline, said a spokesman from The Durst Corporation, which co-owns 1 WTC with the Port Authority.

A committee of architects recognized as the arbiters on world building heights is meeting Friday to decide whether a design change affecting the skyscraper's 408-foot needle disqualifies it from being counted. Disqualification would deny the tower the title as the nation's tallest.

second place by a vote in favor of the New York structure.

"Most of the time these decisions are not so controversial," said Daniel Safarik, an architect and spokesman for the nonprofit Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The 30 members of its Height Committee are meeting to render a judgment behind closed doors in Chicago, where the world's first skyscraper appeared in 1884.

The committee, comprising industry professionals from all over the world, will announce its decision next week.

The question over 1 World Trade Center, which remains under construction and is expected to open next year, arose because of a change to the design of its tower-topping needle. Under the council's current criteria, spires that are an integral part of a building's aesthetic design count; broadcast antennas that can be added and removed do not.

The designers of 1 World Trade Center had intended to enclose the mast's communications gear in decorative cladding made of fiberglass and steel. But the developer removed that exterior shell from the design, saying it would be impossible to properly maintain or repair.

Without it, the question is whether the mast is now primarily just a broadcast antenna.

Safarik said the committee might consider amending its height criteria during the Friday meeting - a move with much broader implications that could force a reshuffle in the rankings of the tallest buildings in the world.

"We take our hats off to them out here in Chicago and the Midwest," said Robert Wislow, chairman and chief executive of U.S. Equities, the firm that manages the Willis Tower. "And we welcome the building to the elite club of the tallest buildings in the world. Nobody's looking at this like a competition."

I think it looks weird that only the antenna is lit and it's kinda just floating there in the dark, seemingly detached from the rest of the building. I hope they'll light the communication ring or parapet, like what they do for the Goldman-Sachs building and 4WTC.

I was out and took a good look at the spire, it desperately needs the ring to be lit up. It just looks like a colorful stick on top of a building, there needs to be a sense of transition to the top. It feels good to see the downtown skyline back to life but let's be honest, the lighting on that stick doesn't come close to that of the Empire State. Tho the beacon is a welcome addition.

I got to see the spire lit in person for the first time from fairly close (Canal St.). The lighting really impresses on you how big that thing really is. It also really impresses how dull its finish is during the daylight hours. Unfortunately the uneven textures of the different spire pieces are kind of highlighted by the light as they reflect light differently, but it's not too bad and disappears mostly in photos.

All in all it's a huge improvement over the daylight version with one exception. Without the rings lit, they get lost. There is a serious disconnect between the building and the spire with them dark that changes the architecture of the buildings. The rings during the day give a nice architectural feature to the top of the building that just disappears at night.

I'm pretty much 100% sure the rings won't be lit which is a real pity, but then again there's a lot of that to go around.